Meet the queen of Latitude - reigning over 600 acts while sipping a cheeky vodka and tonic

Now in its ninth year, Latitude kicks off on Thursday offering an impressive
smorgasbord of culture. Emma Barnett meets Tania Harrison, the woman
in charge of booking 600 acts for 72 hours and discovers why the best
meetings go on in portaloos

There’s a sort of unspoken order to music festivals in the UK. Curious teens tend to start at a freebie, like Radio 1’s Big Weekend, and then, if they catch the bug, quickly graduate onto day events like V. Once their music toes have been fully dipped in mud, the likes of Leeds or Isle of Wight beckon.

For the teenagers who persist after this, there’s really only one left to conquer – the mighty Glasto. Or so was my journey, along with many beer addled chums, into the glorious technicolour world of British music festivals.

Now we’re 30, and a little tired of standing around for hours simply waiting for the beat to drop, where do we go? To Latitude of course. Or ‘Latte-tude’ so the joke goes about the lovely middle class Suffolk music and arts fest, which attracts families and pensioners alike. One to 85 is the age range of attendees I’m reliably told. Think large (approximately 35,000 people over three days) cultural garden party, fuelled by Pimm’s, where anyone from Dame Vivienne Westwood through to Kelis can be found entertaining a discerning crowd, and you’ve pretty much nailed it.

Enjoying its ninth year, Latitude kicks off this Thursday with Damon Albarn, The Black Keys and Two Door Cinema Club headlining the music billing – but a whopping 11 of the 17 stages go far beyond the usual musical diet at music festivals. Poetry, comedy, film, cabaret, ballet, literature, theatre and a smattering of politics are all on offer at this impressive smorgasbord of culture.

One woman is behind this 600-act bonanza staged at Henham Park in Suffolk; meet Tania Harrison, the effervescent 43 year-old curator of Latitude’s Arts Arenas. She basically sorts anything that isn’t the tunes.

Scroll down to see Tania's top 5 acts to see at this year's Latitude

She originally pitched the idea of “a different kind of festival” to the board of Festival Republic, an events promoter where she is head of arts and comedy, getting sign off from her boss Melvin Benn in 2006 . Harrison has been in charge of Latitude’s arts scene ever since.

I meet Harrison in her cubby hole of an office, which is covered in arts posters, listings and of course, this year’s vast run-down.

Looking utilitarian chic in a fetching pair of black dungarees, and a white tee, Yorkshirewoman Harrison is a ball of energy. But then again you’d have to be to do her job well. Out every night trying to scout the brightest and best talent, unbeknownst to her, since our interview I’ve actually spied Harrison twice in two different London neighbourhoods outside gigs. (Not that I’m stalking her, honest).

Harrison on site

It takes her an entire year to book her side of Latitude – as well as filling the stages at Leeds and Reading festivals – which is also her responsibility.

Druggy mud baths

She thinks the idea of music festivals as just being “mud baths filled with people on drugs”, has finally started to fade and is being replaced with a more nuanced perception – reflecting the reality of events like Latitude.

“I think we’ve come a long way from that view, especially when you think of listening to Dara O Briain or watching the English National Ballet on the banks of a river bank, as you can do at Latitude,” she explains. “Not that there’s anything wrong with mud baths of course,” Harrison hastily adds with a cheeky smile.

“People shouldn’t underestimate a festival audience. It’s my job to find what they will like and give them a bit more.”

“Ambitious” is how Harrison describes her programme and quite rightly too. For this is the woman who first coaxed Sadler’s Wells’s ballerinas and flamenco dancers into a meadow of revellers.

“The first time I brought theatre [the Royal Shakespeare Company - RSC] into a field people thought I was crazy – but I want all those genres – music, theatre, ballet and dance to come together.

“I want them to be accessible for anyone to see and to cross-fertilise,” she enthuses, unexpectedly offering me a cherry from a crumpled brown bag she produces from behind her. Naturally I oblige.

“I grew up in a very small village in Yorkshire. I never had the opportunity to see theatre that changed the way I thought about issues. The nearest theatre was 30 miles away – with a constant programme of [Oscar Wilde’s] Lady Windermere’s Fan – which isn’t what I wanted to see when I was 16-years-old… my greatest challenge is getting all of the teens who come to Latitude, and thousands of them do, to see performances they may never come across elsewhere.”

Strange things happen in portaloos

Speaking of cross-fertilisation, Harrison is very proud that the first time the RSC met the acclaimed singer and composer Camille O’Sullivan was in a toilet at Latitude. Both parties then went onto collaborate resulting in a new production of The Rape of Lucrece. Who knew a portaloo encounter could yield such creativity? My festival portaloo experiences to date are slightly less impressive, but let’s not dwell on that.

Every Latitude has a theme which Harrison decides, based on what’s “bothering her and everyone else”. This year’s, ‘Secrets and Lies’, was inspired by the revelations of the US fugitive intelligence leaker Edward Snowden.

“I was thinking about the whole security and privacy issue - my data being shared; my HMRC data, my NHS records. I looked at the Snowden revelations and the knock-on effect of that story. The way it’s brought Google into the public consciousness and who knows what about us. I think it’s my duty to explore that,” she explains.

It’s entirely up to artists whether they want to explore the theme or not, which does sound pretty heavy for a “cultural garden party”. However, as Harrison is at pains to stress, the theme lends itself to entertainment as well. ‘Secrets and Lies’ can be both dark and light.

“To be honest, as a nation, British people tend to have a love and romance with spies, think of James Bond…I think people who take cultural risks and like learning new things come to Latitude.”

When things go wrong

Unlike most jobs, Harrison can’t relax to enjoy the fruits of her labour come the start of the festival on Thursday. Instead, she will be running around to make sure all 600 acts come off. Things obviously go wrong – like the time it started raining while Sadler’s Wells' dancers were performing and the whole show had to be moved. Twelve of Harrison’s team were then deployed with hair dryers in an effort to make the stage bone dry for the flamenco dancers, who were up next.

“Ballerinas can’t dance if there is damp in the air. They are like race horses. Hence why we had to put a very special roof on that particular stage. It’s designed in a way so the rain never hits the stage. We put it in last year and I can’t even say how much it cost. But it does mean I now vomit less with stress,” she concedes in a rare admission of anxiety, during our very jolly interview.

The female world of festivals

Interestingly the majority of her festival organising team is female and she says she works with “lots of women – female producers and artistic directors”- but it wasn’t always the case. Twenty years ago when she began booking artists, it was a male dominated world – but she says “it’s just changed with society” and moves on quickly.

At the time of our chat, the issue of female comedians on TV panel shows is a hot topic.

Harrison visibly shudders at the idea of introducing gender quotas in her world.

“I don’t think about any quotas when booking acts. I only think about what’s brilliant. It wasn’t until somebody pointed out to me that a third of my comedy acts at this year’s Latitude are female, I even thought about a gender split,” she says earnestly.

Latitude is referred to as a 'she'

However, I am intrigued whether she thinks Latitude is a different festival in any way because it is booked by a woman.

Harrison, pauses, smiles and explains that “as a programmer your taste is your taste” and any festival “reflects the booker”.

But then admits she does find it “interesting” that when people review Latitude they often refer to it as a ‘her’.

“Somebody once called Latitude ‘the queen of arts festivals’ – which pleased me greatly, because I like the idea that you can see there’s a female sensibility, not that I’m cocky or anything,” she adds charmingly.

Despite her huge booking ambitions, having led to her landing stars such as David Bailey and staging feats like the only live showing of Never Mind the Buzzcocks, a few of the late greats will always remain out of reach. Dorothy Parker, in another life, would have been her dream casting to top the poetry bill she confides.

But Harrison doesn’t dwell on such futile indulgences for long.

Her main job is to figure you, the punter, out, she says suddenly staring at me, eyes twinkling. “I want to know what intrigues you. I like to work out what you might like.”

Unexpectedly on the spot and struggling for a decent response, I faithfully promise to report back to her what I do, and crucially, don’t like come the weekend festivities, when I try out Latitude for the first time.

“The wonderful thing about a festival like Latitude is being in the company of people with interesting and stimulating ideas and allowing yourself to have the fun that we all work for, really,” Harrison explains, dreamily.

“And such festivals bring new conversation. Isn’t that what we all want? What’s wrong with a little bit of joy in your life? And all with a vodka and tonic in your hand.”